Monotype font platform upload and update issues

Dusan Jelesijevic

Hi all,

I just wanted to check if what's happening to me actually an isolated case or it happens to others as well.

Monotype font platform won't let me upload anything in existing font family – nor font files nor images.
Every time I try, messages in red rectangles in top right corner of the page jumps out with warning that something is not right.

MyFonts support doesn't respond on email (although they responded on Twitter by forwarding issue to support again) so far.

I wanted to upload new version of OTF files for our latest release that have some kerning issues that are present at MyFonts website only, while on other vendors, same font files don't have that kerning issue. So, I suspect that there's something wrong with this font platform which we have not been informed about from them.


Does anyone else have similar issues with their platform recently?


Thanks,
Dušan

Dusan Jelesijevic

It's been error on my side.
My apologies to everyone I may confused.
This topic can be removed if admin agrees.
Sorry once again.

Justin Penner

I noticed recently that the MyFonts type tester adds kerning rules together if you have duplicate rules applying to the same pair. I'm not sure what the correct spec behaviour is, but all my pre-release testing on the font was done in software that seems to just pick one kerning pair instead of combining them, so I didn't catch the error until after the release, when I happened to see that kerning pair in the type tester.

Paul Hanslow

A colleague of mine recently had multiple issues with uploading images to support a new release on MyFonts. First the images wouldn't upload, then only one image would show in the carousel. It took them multiple emails and other avenues of contact to get MyFonts to look into the issue and fix it, taking about a month to do so.  I honestly don't know what's going on with MyFonts.

Dusan Jelesijevic

Mine problem was that I wanted to update existing OTF files with the same files (with same Md5). I was assuming that Platform badly uploaded files as some kerning pairs appeared to look very strange on their render text samples comparing to mine tests and other vendor's websites where I uploaded same font files. So, new version must be really new.

Regarding to kerning issue... I got answer yesterday: "By default, our new font rendering service will only render kerning pairs from the standard GPOS pairing font table. If you have kerning in the 'kern' table, we recommend changing the binary to have GPOS kerning table entries that are available in the 'kern' table."

Thomas Phinney

Dusan Jelesijevic said:

Regarding to kerning issue... I got answer yesterday: "By default, our new font rendering service will only render kerning pairs from the standard GPOS pairing font table. If you have kerning in the 'kern' table, we recommend changing the binary to have GPOS kerning table entries that are available in the 'kern' table."

I initially read this as the reverse! 

Not crazy for them to expect GPOS kerning, in new fonts. But there are plenty of old fonts sold on MyFonts.

Has there been a trend for layout engines to stop supporting the 'kern' table in favor of GPOS kerning only? If so, which ones? I had not heard this previously.

Dusan Jelesijevic

There is more: "Recently we upgraded our font rendering system. It's much faster, more reliable, and makes the site load much faster. Our developers have been increasing the functionality of the renderer since then.... Currently, our font renderer has the same behaviour as Word and does not render kerning if there is a default kerning table only. Our developers are actively working on upgrading this. It will be fixed automatically once the upgrade is done."

Adam Jagosz

I always get errors when uploading new versions of multiple styles at once. Sometimes it will reject some of the styles with a cryptic error message and when you try to upload the files that were rejected again, it tells you "this file already exists". Sometimes the seemingly rejected files appear as new (albeit empty) styles at the bottom and I am able to remove them from there (after typing DELETE) and upload again, otherwise I need to refresh the site and start the whole edit operation from scratch.

Might or might not have something to do with the fact I have more than one font family inside that MF product.

Nikola Kostic

Dusan Jelesijevic said:

There is more: "Recently we upgraded our font rendering system. It's much faster, more reliable, and makes the site load much faster. Our developers have been increasing the functionality of the renderer since then.... Currently, our font renderer has the same behaviour as Word and does not render kerning if there is a default kerning table only. Our developers are actively working on upgrading this. It will be fixed automatically once the upgrade is done."

"...actively working on upgrading..." LOL! I got the same response when I complained regarding a similar problem more than a year ago. They did nothing to fix the issue in the meantime. I gave up. Btw, here's the problem I complained about – mystery spacing appears in font preview (only on MyFonts):

Christian Thalmann

I'm also having trouble with the Monotype Font Platform. I was supposed to add some extra posters for an upcoming promo, but it wouldn't accept the edit because of some new guidelines. At that occasion, I noticed only 50 out of the 99 fonts of the family were even shown in the MFP. Trying to drag the missing OTFs in to update them, I got cryptic error messages for some of them and duplicate fonts for others. I ended up canceling the whole edit so as not to leave the family in a broken state.

After several more attempts (including a half-hour wait for three uploaded OTFs to be «processed»), I got spontaneously kicked out of the process and was asked to log back in. After that, I was able to upload the new images and remove most of my sale packages in order to pass the new guidelines. That worked, but I'm still worried half of my fonts might go missing or be excluded from the packages because they didn't show up properly in MFP. Unfortunately, I can't make any more attempts to fix that now because my edit is in limbo and waiting 24 h to be published on MyFonts, for better or worse...

/rant

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Thomas Phinney said:

Not crazy for them to expect GPOS kerning, in new fonts. But there are plenty of old fonts sold on MyFonts.

Font ageism is in the air...

Dusan Jelesijevic

Nikola Kostic said:

Btw, here's the problem I complained about – mystery spacing appears in font preview (only on MyFonts):

We have pretty similar (if not the same) problem.

Christian Thalmann said:

I'm also having trouble with the Monotype Font Platform. I was supposed to add some extra posters for an upcoming promo, but it wouldn't accept the edit because of some new guidelines.

If poster dimensions are not proper (1440x720), it won't accept it. But I'm sure that's not case cause of what you said after quoted part. 

Those errors you all mentioned – errors during uploading new font files – after being frustrated at first, I started acting like that's normal thing  They are present for almost the beginning of the platform, but they haven't been solved so far. They are pretty sure aware of it, but... obviously things are not working smoothly.

I am a bit pissed on all this cause of bad renders MF give, the font I'm talking about now looks like half-product and it effects on customers choice for sure (like @Nikola Kostic probably feel with his Allotrope).

Jeff Levine Fonts

I just happened to find this discussion page.   In October, 2021 MyFonts had some sort of "back end issue" than dumped nine months of my fonts waiting in queue for future release all at once (other vendors were affected as well).  I was then told to set any new releases for "as soon as possible". 

November's releases went fine... but it took THREE WEEKS after approval of my December releases for (1) All of the fonts to appear on my foundry page. (2) All of the fonts to appear in name searches and (3) about half of my font banner graphics ro appear on the font listings.

Out of ten listings, five are missing all of the graphics, four are OK, and one has two banners missing.

Add to this that I no longer can have those releases on the "What's New" page, as that page is auto-generated and these released finally got "fixed" (so to speak) ten days after first being approved.

Numerous emails to get things right haven't brought final results, and I was asked to refrain from emailing so much, because every additional email "slows down the work to fix the problems".

In general... you're lucky if you get any response, and when you do, you're told things like "don't worry, we're working on it" and such.

It seems that "Foundry Support" is more theory than practice.

Jeff Levine Fonts

Now I'll probably be called out for exercising my First Amendment rights on a font forum...

John Hudson

Now I'll probably be called out for exercising my First Amendment rights on a font forum...

There are no First Amendment rights on a font forum.

But I doubt if anyone here is going to call you out for criticising Monotype.

Ray Larabie

The same thing happened with my recent release which got bumped into the past and the promo graphics vanished. They're doing a database merger and strange things have been occurring. Check all your font listings very carefully. My fonts are also listed on Fonts.com and I think it might have something to do with some of the metadata issues I've been having.

Saurabh Sharma

In October, 2021 MyFonts had some sort of "back end issue"...

Yes, I also faced some issues. Their backend system was undergoing an upgrade which was expected to be completed by the end of this year 2021.

I had submitted two families (Static fonts and a Variable font). The backend would show 1 released family and 2 under review. Sometimes it will show 3 released families. The edit page was broken, the frontend showed wrong number of static fonts. Below are some screenshots which I took back then:



After so many days of waiting, I got reply from the staff, that we are working on it. FInally one day the families got released. Then I did not had any permalink or page link where I could find it. The only way was to type exact name in search box to see where it landed.

Jeff Levine Fonts

LOL!  I meant to infer that if someone from Monotype reads that thread, I'd be called out for my criticisms.

Since they wouldn't answr an email about how and if I could edit graphics on the Font Platform page, I went about trying to figure things out myself... which was useless.

I did discover, however, that ALL of the missing graphics are sitting right where they should be on the preview page for each font, but NOT on the actually released font pages...

PLUS... Thanks to another type designer I was "clued in" when my "released fonts" showed ZERO and "fonts pending approval"showed 61.  (which in reality is 1900 released fonts and ZERO waiting for approval!)...

He told me to search for a partcular font by name.  After trying that method I was able to view each font's preview page.

I usually try to release ten new fonts per month.  Right now I have five designs in the works - and one of the reasons I'm holding back on finishing them is this issue.

What will happen to my new releases?  If I set a future release date, that's not guaranteed (as I was told) because of the back-end issue being worked on.  If I set them to be released "as soon as possible", will I go through the many issues again... fonts not showing up on my foundry page - individual font pages missing - fonts marked "not available for sale" or missing graphics?  If I write to folundry support about the issues, will they be fixed promptly?  (Doubtful.)

Foundry support has just one job  - to support the independent foundries that make them money.  We do the drawing, designing, spacing, kerning.  We write the promotional texts, create the graphics and do the uploads.  We check and double check on the new releases and follow through with reporting any issues...

All Monotype needs to do is sell the fonts and pay us... but they also need to have a foundry support system that is there for us (like it was when Bitstream had MyFonts) when issue do arrive.  To have one "executive" oversee the running of their program and one "Technical Support Specialist" half a world away in a different time zone has reduced "foundry support" to "occasional support"...

Now it seems that we are the "thorns in their side" when their foul-ups deny us both (distributor and vendor) potential sales... and don't get me started as to how my net revenue each month is always fractionally shorter because their system cannot do even division.......

Jeff Levine Fonts

PS:  Sorry for the typos... I was in a venting mood and didn't proofread all of my text properly...

Jesse R Ewing

The posts here from the past two days prompted me to check my stuff on MyFonts and sure enough, a bunch of information that used to be correct is now messed up. Again. I sent off an email to foundry support and got an auto-reply that they're all out for the holidays! I should get a response in 5 days or so, maybe, who knows.

Jeff Levine Fonts

Figure about two weeks, if you're lucky...

Jeff Levine Fonts

If you want another perspective of Monotype's "business model", then check out this article:

https://qz.com/2068310/what-monotypes-purchase-of-hoeflerco-means-to-font-designers/

James Puckett

FWIW Fontspring usually gets new fonts posted in a day or two. And the royalties are better. If you’re spending time and money marketing your new work MyFonts might not be the best place to launch a typeface.

Jeff Levine Fonts

I'm also with Fontspring.  They're great, and so much more proactive that the MyFonts "Floundering Support"...

JoyceKetterer

@James Puckett I like Fontspring WAY more than Monotype.  I mean, it's not a contest. That said, we're not with either because neither can accommodate our licensing needs.  Question, are the royalties better or is the royalty cut better?  I get the impression that Fontspring has a very specific client base and way fewer sales than one might expect from a reseller their size (much less compared to Myfonts).

Ray Larabie

@JoyceKetterer Fontspring's take is 30%. My monthly net from Fontspring is roughly the same as Monotype. Number of sales is about a quarter of Monotype but with the extra 20% and more sales of bigger ticket embedding licenses, it adds up to roughly the same amount.

James Puckett

@JoyceKetterer My Fontspring income is less than my MyFonts income was. But they take a smaller cut. And I was on the old 35% Bitstream rate at MyFonts, I never deigned to the 50% rate they’re taking now.

Mark Simonson

@James Puckett If your rate was still 35%, then I'm guessing you're talking about quite a while ago. I don't know if it's true for everyone, but MyFonts sales volume isn't what it was back then. My experience has been similar to @Ray Larabie for a while.

James Puckett

@Mark Simonson I was still getting the old Bitstream rate until earlier this year. I just never signed the Monotype contract.

Die in-dryfoun

.

Christian Thalmann

I love the friendly and hassle-free nature of FontSpring, but I get significantly more traffic on MyFonts. My net earnings on FontSpring have been 12.6% of my net earnings on MyFonts this year.